


tread lightly through the dark

by wild_once



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Idiots in Love, M/M, Major Character Injury, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:26:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25754296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wild_once/pseuds/wild_once
Summary: tomorrow always seems like another day when you have all the time in the worldyou’d be amazed at what people can find out when they bide their time
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 56





	tread lightly through the dark

**_Now:_ **

Terminal 3 in Manchester Airport is as good a place as any to have a complete nervous breakdown, Eames thinks, as he sprints to his gate. He pats his pockets, searching for the shape of his car keys underneath. He’s travelling on a Norweigan passport; they’ve called Ivan Sorenson twice already and he doesn’t fancy eating up his third-time’s-a-charm luck right now, not when Arthur’s lying in a hospital bed in Los Angeles with a bullet hole in his head. _Fuck, did I even turn the engine off? Fuck, fuck, Arthur’s going to be so fucked off if I’ve lost the car keys again. Better for me if someone nicks the whole car -_

He hates that he’s preparing for the worst, that he’s cycled through the stages of grief at least ten times since leaving their home to arrive at this very place, the gate in Terminal 3. 

Even though he’ll be fine, obviously. 

Cobb loves dramatics - he sold dreams for a living, after all. When he said _it’s not looking good, Eames, you need to get here now_ what he really meant was _I’m not sure why you’re Arthur’s medical contact and that pisses me off so can you please get here and explain it to me_. 

Still, it doesn’t explain why Eames finds himself slumped over and sobbing in the plane toilet after takeoff. 

Nor why, when he curls in on himself to bury his head in his hands and the car keys tumble out of his breast pocket, he doesn’t feel relieved at all. 

**_Then:_ **

‘I’m just saying, I feel uncomfortable drying my underwear over an oven. I planned space for a laundry room,’ says Arthur, plucking his underwear and socks from the line above the AGA.

‘Firstly, darling, it’s not an oven: this is a ten-thousand-pound cooker that’ll keep warm through the winter-’

‘And summer. And spring -’

‘And autumn.’ Eames wraps his arms around Arthur’s waist and noses at his neck. ‘And secondly - I’ll need it the next few weeks, won’t I, what with you swanning off to hang out with Dom.’ Eames sighs dramatically. ‘Can’t you just ship the bloody PASIV to him?’ 

‘Oh my god, you’re a genius,’ Arthur gasps, ‘I’ll just FedEx a multi-million dollar feat of dream technology of which there are only a dozen left in the entire world.’ Arthur twists in Eames’ arms, tries to throw him off balance with a playful jut of his hip but it’s no use - Eames has him snared. 

‘Seriously, E - I’m going to drop it off, spend a day with the kids and leave.’ He takes a moment to run his fingertips over the scar underneath Eames’ chin and tilts his face up for a kiss. ‘And maybe stop for tacos at that place I like but that’s it. I’ll be back here hanging your _knickers_ out to dry before you know it.’

**_Now:_ **

Eames doesn’t have to ask Cobb why he’s wearing scrubs, not when he notices the sanguine crust around his fingernails and the relentless juddering of his knee. He’s rolling his top between his palms, shakes his head as Eames approaches. ‘Fuck, Eames - I didn’t even see them coming. How could I not-’

Eames grits his teeth and falls into the chair next to him. ‘Who?’ 

Cobb shakes his head. ‘Arthur met me in a rental, we drove maybe… ten minutes? I’m not sure. We stopped at a red, someone tapped on the window. I didn’t see them…’ Cobb brings a trembling hand to his mouth. The injury pattern on Cobb’s arm comes as no surprise: Eames has had car windows explode next to him more than enough times. ‘I’m sorry,’ he gasps desperately, and then adds, rather uselessly, ‘his surgeon should be back soon. Head wounds bleed a lot, Eames, it doesn’t mean…’

The blood roars in Eames’ ears, and the next thing he knows he’s crouched in the busy corridor with his head in his hands. 

**_Then:_ **

Nine-thirty on a Saturday night. Underneath a duvet and tartan blanket Arthur’s icy toes poke Eames’ calves. 

‘Christ, Arthur!’ Eames yelps and makes a half-hearted attempt to push him away. 

‘This is your punishment for trying to fix the heating yourself,’ Arthur groans, twisting into Eames’ reluctantly welcoming arms. ‘If I freeze to death in my sleep I’m going to make it my duty to haunt your ass for the rest of your life.’

Eames rolls Arthur onto his back, makes a home in between his legs. ‘Whilst it’s tempting to pull back the covers and let nature take its course,’ he purrs and sucks at Arthur’s neck, right under his jawline where it counts, ‘I simply can’t go back to doing the dishes again.’

‘Charming.’ 

‘You’ve spared the rod and spoilt the child, darling. I’ve become accustomed to being looked after and it’s entirely your fault for being so good at it.’ 

Arthur throws his leg over Eames’ and pushes in closer. ‘I should have escaped when I had the chance.’

Eames pulls his lips away from Arthur’s neck and slides them up to his ear to whisper, ‘can’t have you wandering around with all my secrets in that lovely head of yours, now can I?’ 

_**Now:** _

Time passes and stops simultaneously. Eames showers and changes his clothes. Drifts down the corridors at four a.m. and thinks about Stephen King novels and things that move in the dark.

Eames sits next to Arthur’s bed with a death grip on his hand and stares at the flickering exit sign outside the door. His teeth itch with _what-ifs_ and _if-only_ s, and sometimes he tries to match his heartbeat to the beep of Arthur’s vitals but it’s no use: Arthur’s heart beats slow and artificially steady whilst Eames’ rabbits in his chest.

The ventilator pushing air into Arthur’s lungs gasps and groans something awful and Eames can’t look at Arthur, not really. Can’t stand the way his chest expands and depresses like clockwork or how his pale lips contort around the tube that’s keeping him alive. He can glance at his body, take in a limb here and a stretch of skin there, but never the full picture. Arthur always did ( _does_ , Eames scolds himself) prefer details. 

He daydreams (or hallucinates, what’s the difference when you’re in a living nightmare?) ripping the IV line from Arthur’s hand and shaking him awake. _We’re cashing in our chips,_ he screams in his fantasy, _this job is a bust. Run!_ _I’ll meet you_ _somewhere warm. Somewhere we can float in the ocean after an endless day of achieving precisely nothing._

On the third day, Cobb returns with coffee and danishes and sets up camp next to Arthur’s bed. He smells great, and he’s almost definitely slept through the night. But then, Eames supposes, he’s familiar bedfellows with tragedy; he trained himself to sleep through the ache long ago. 

Still, when he greets Arthur as if he’ll respond it takes every shred of restraint for Eames not to grab him by his collar and launch him through the window.

‘So,’ Cobb starts gently, blowing on his cup of coffee, ‘your Arthur’s medical contact?’

‘We live together.’

‘Yeah?’ Cobb smiles, genuine, ‘how’s that been working out for you?’

‘It was working out marvellously until you made an appearance.’

And it’s a low blow - they both know it - but Cobb is too polite for his own good sometimes and he doesn’t even flinch, just sips his coffee and watches Arthur’s chest rise and fall.

‘You should massage his hands,’ Cobb says evenly, ‘to keep his blood moving.’ He sips his coffee. ‘So… tell me everything -’ 

‘Bollocks to this,’ Eames snaps, ‘ _you_ tell me everything: where he rented the car, the route he took, and why the fuck you wanted that PASIV badly enough to drag him into the line of fire.’

Cobb’s face twists. ‘Why I wanted it? Eames, Arthur called me to tell me he wanted me to take it off his hands. I offered to come get it but he was adamant. He said he had some loose ends to tie up and he was coming my way anyway.’

Silence falls between them when Gabi, Arthur’s nurse, floats in with an easy smile and a _hello Mr West, how are you today?_

 _What loose ends?_ dies in Eames’ throat.

Gabi notes Arthur’s vitals and checks his dressings, all whilst making small talk with Cobb about the cafe down the way where he bought the danishes. 

‘I didn’t realise Mr _West’s_ body would be such a conversation piece,’ Eames interrupts. He drops Arthur’s hand and snatches his coffee from the table. ‘No, by all means, please continue - I’m sure he’s hanging on your every word.’

‘That’s all for now, Mr West,’ Gabi says gently, ‘you’re not alone; the people who love you will be here when you’re ready to wake up.’

_**Then:** _

‘So, if this is going to work, I’m going to need to know everything.’ Arthur’s sitting cross-legged in Eames’ bed. He’s naked and flushed after an effortless day of fucking and sipping the elderflower wine gifted to them by their neighbour two fields over. 

‘Define everything,’ Eames replies, pouring himself another glass. He sets the bottle down on the floor and leans against the footboard to appreciate the sight before him: Arthur brandishing the glass in one hand and a pen in the other, like an artist and his subject all at once. Eames wonders if he should take a picture to show anyone whoever refers to Arthur as ‘uptight’ ever again but Arthur knows at least five ways to kill (and only one way to revive) a man with a biro and decides against it.

‘Are you asking me for specificity, Mr Eames?’ Arthur asks, and to Eames’ cocked eyebrow replies, ‘ok. Where were you born?’

‘The British Army.’

Arthur rolls his eyes. He rests the nib on the page of the notebook splayed open on the bed. ‘As a baby.’

Eames takes a breath and a gulp of wine. ‘An army base in Nairobi, in 1977. What about you?’

‘A hospital in Portland. 1981,’ Arthur replies easily without looking up. ‘How many places are you wanted in? I’m at fourteen; I keep a list.’

‘Of course you do.’ 

Arthur grins. ‘Last I checked it was twenty-eight.’

‘Then you weren’t very thorough.’ 

‘Excuse me? You’re counting Bucharest; I took down those fuckers in Bucharest.’ Arthur punctuates his point with a jerk of his hand. Wine sloshes over the side of the glass and he chases the stray drops on his wrist with his tongue.

‘Only one, darling,’ Eames reminds him.

‘Still your fault, by the way.’ Arthur sighs. ‘Fine, we’ll count Bucharest.’

Eames sets his glass down and crawls across the bed. He pushes Arthur’s notebook out of the way and plucks the pen right from his fingertips. Slides it behind his own ear and pushes Arthur back against the headboard. 

Arthur goes willingly. 

‘Nairobi, the seventeenth of August 1977. My mum’s name is Mary, and even at his funeral I still only referred to my father as Sir. When I was fifteen, I smashed my collarbone riding a shopping trolley down a hill and it still throws my aim off on rainy days in Bucharest.’ He sets Arthur’s glass aside and kisses his redworn lips, tastes the sweetness and relentless desire that lingers there. ‘But you know all about me already, don’t you, pet?’

Arthur’s hands pull him up, up to kneel, up enough for Eames to push his cock right between his lips like it’s nothing. Eames braces his hands against the wall, allows himself to test Arthur’s eagerness as he swallows him down. 

And then Arthur stares up at him until Eames can’t take it anymore, and he’s forced to twist the soft hair at the crown of Arthur’s head and pull him back to bare his throat. He lets his cock fall from Arthur’s willing mouth and fucks his hand until he comes all over Arthur’s cheeks and Adam's apple. Kisses the taste of himself right out of his mouth and reaches down to slap Arthur’s hand away from where he’s working himself roughly. 

It doesn’t take long after that, not long at all until Arthur shows all his teeth and pants _that’s it, Oscar, are you gonna make me come_ into Eames’ mouth.

_**Now:** _

On the fifth day, Eames decides enough is enough. Curiosity might kill the dreamer, but it’s better than spending the rest of his life not knowing. 

‘This is a terrible idea.’ Cobb says and clicks the door or Arthur’s room shut. He jams a chair tight against the handle. ‘Awful. One of the worst you’ve ever had.’ 

Eames flips through Arthur’s chart to triple-check he’s Googled all the medication he’s on and their known interactions with Somnacin, reasons with Cobb (and himself) with - ‘he’s already heavily sedated; how much worse can it get? Just come over here and get us set up, will you?’

Cobb hands Eames a line between pinched fingers and Eames slips it into Arthur’s vein without any hesitation. ‘He’s too heavily sedated, Eames. He’ll lose his grip on reality. This is exactly why dreamsharing with coma patients is completely unethical.’

Eames gives Cobb _the look_. ‘Let’s not worry about _ethics_ right now, hmm? Fifteen minutes to start,’ Eames instructs, slipping the needle into his wrist, ‘if he starts to get upset slip the heart rate monitor onto your finger and practise some of that mindfulness you love so much.’ 

_**Then:** _

Whenever anyone asks Eames if he has trouble sleeping, he tells them that he once slept through a raid on a brothel he’d sought refuge in during an unfortunate week in Guam. 

If they’re clumsy enough to make noise, they’re slow enough to run from, and Eames thinks that sums up his life of crime quite nicely. 

So, yes, Eames can sleep through raids on brothels, hurricanes and flash floods, but never, _ever_ the soft creak of bare feet on ancient floorboards, which is why he finds himself holding a knife to Arthur’s throat at four a.m. on a hot summer’s morning.

And now, in the kitchen, he’s yelling, ‘I could have fucking killed you, you twat!’ and gulping down a pint of ice-cold milk. 

‘I have a key!’

Arthur flinches when Eames’ glass shatters in the sink basin, and Eames’ gut twists in regret. ‘I’m not angry,’ he says by way of apology, ‘fucking hell. Fuck! What are you doing here?’

‘You gave me a key,’ Arthur states quietly. He drops his bag. ‘Why didn’t you wait for me?’

‘Didn’t want to miss my connection.’

‘We’d just pulled off the biggest job of our lives, Eames -’

‘And your first thought was to get back on a plane and drive to the middle of the Lake District?’ Eames interrupts, crossing his arms across his bare chest. He leans against the counter, defensive. 

‘No. It wasn’t, actually. God, you’re so full of yourself.’ Arthur kicks his travel bag. It skids across the clay floor and halts at Eames’ bare toes. ‘I went home to get my favourite suits so I could hang them up, and I brought five of my favourite albums to put next to that awful, screeching record player you bought in Brighton. And, oh look!’ Arthur’s riled - not only from his journey and his stale clothes but from having to do _this_ , to shove his hand into the hidden compartment of his carry on to retrieve a handful of passports. ‘I brought every single, fucking, incriminating piece of me.’ He opens a French passport and holds open the photo page, and tosses it at Eames' feet, and repeats it with the others. 

He throws down a dozen lives and stares Eames right in the face whilst doing it.

‘So, here I am. Now, if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to go have a shower and get into bed.’

Arthur breezes past Eames and up the stairs. By the time he slips under the covers, Eames has his suits airing in the wardrobe and all his lives wrapped up with his own.

  
  


_**Now:** _

Eames sits in the _idea_ of their garden on a beautiful summer’s day. The air is a perfect twenty-four celsius, and the summer breeze is enough to kiss but never chill. 

Arthur’s subconscious swells in the sky, purple and angry, ready to unleash a torrent. An unsubtle calm before the storm. 

Eames watches it pulse and shift. He’s wary, and Arthur’s nowhere to be found.

So, he calls to him. Softly at first, questioning, ‘Arthur?’ and then, when it’s clear he hasn’t been heard, ‘come on, love, dinner’s getting cold!’ 

There’s a rush of air and then the sound of lungs fighting to expand. Distorted gasps that echo somewhere over the horizon, and horrible gasps and wheezes that whip up around his shoulders.

And then Arthur appears, frightened and on his knees, croaking, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,’ over and over and over.

Eames drops down beside him and gathers him up in his arms. Presses his cheek against Arthur’s and whispers, ‘you can, I promise. With me, come on.’

They breathe together. Arthur clutches at Eames’ shirt and shakes and shakes. 

‘Everything’s fine,’ Eames soothes, ‘look here, can you feel me?’

Arthur shakes his head and then, very quietly, spills his secret. ‘Eames, I’m blind.’

Eames pulls away from Arthur and moves his hair from his face. ‘Arthur,’ he says very softly, ‘Arthur, open your eyes. There you go… hello.’

Arthur looks around and relaxes at the sight of the fields around them. ‘Oh, we’re at home?’

Eames shakes his head. ‘You left -’

‘No, I came back.’

‘You did. But, you went to meet Dom, do you remember? Only for a few days.’

What is terror, Eames wonders? A rush of chemicals that betray your conscious mind? Or the wide and lovely eyes of the person you love no longer trusting you? 

‘Arthur, something went very wrong.’ The ground rumbles beneath his knees. ‘But I really need you to calm down because we don’t have very long.’ 

The breeze picks up and blows a gale around them. Wildflowers shoot from the ground and explode all around them, leaving nothing tough weeds in their wake. 

‘Why not? What happened?’ Arthur asks desperately. He cups Eames’ face in his palms, spiders his fingers from behind Eames’ ears, to his nape and back again. His eyes spark, just enough, and he thumbs underneath Eames’ chin. His smile is weak, but Eames is nodding and Arthur nods along with him. 

Eames leans into his touch; Arthur’s hands are rigid and freezing, and Eames can almost hear Cobb’s voice reminding him not to keep such a death grip on Arthur’s hands.

‘This isn’t real.’

‘I know,’ Eames says, because if Arthur’s eyes are open then it’s a certainty. ‘Now, let’s start with everything I know.’

_**Then:** _

Nothing is certain in life except death and Arthur’s loyalty. So, when Mal becomes a ghost and Cobb a spectre on the run, Arthur becomes something in between the two. Mal dies in May, and in June Eames jolts awake as Arthur creeps out of the house with a whispered _I have to run_. 

He messages in September, just to say _i’m alive_ and then in November - _can you meet me at the Hilton @ Heathrow in 2 days?_

Eames is in Mombasa but he sprints between three connections to keep his promise. 

In Room 421, Eames finds Arthur basked in the sickly TV glow of a muted twenty-four-hour news channel, barefooted and dead to the world. His totem and a pack of codeine are discarded on the bedside table next to his mobile. Arthur’s leaner than he was in June, and twitching in his sleep as only those withdrawing from Somnacin do. He drops his bag and crawls onto the bed, and Arthur turns over like clockwork, fists his hands in Eames’ shirt and pulls him flush against him. 

‘I need some time,’ Arthur slurs into Eames’ chest, ‘to sleep.’ He reaches up to stroke Eames’ face, all the way across his forehead down to the stubble on his jaw.

‘Then sleep; I’m not going anywhere.’

And maybe that’s been his problem all along, Eames realises sometime after three a.m. when a playful jab about Arthur sneaking off in the dead of night with his ‘mistress Dom Cobb’ escalates into Arthur slipping the blade right where he knows it’ll cause the most internal damage.

‘Let’s just get one thing straight: I go wherever I want _whenever_ I want,’ Arthur seethes, standing over Eames with fists clenched. ‘I fell into this world because I didn’t have any other choice, not like you, and that’s the difference you’ll never understand.’

‘Got a choice now, though.’

‘How?’

‘Sack Cobb off,’ Eames says simply. ‘This has _nothing_ to do with you. Let him run around and sort himself out.’

‘You are so cold -’

‘Better that than a martyr to loyalty, Arthur.’ Eames shrugs, unmoved, and sucks back a second beer from the minibar. 

Arthur shakes his head. ‘You know, _you_ are the exact reason I keep a leash on my imagination.’ Arthur grabs his socks and pulls them on. Shoves his feet into his travel-worn leather loafers. ‘I must have been a fucking idiot to imagine this was anything more than you getting what you want all of the time.’ He snatches his leather jacket off the back of the desk chair and pulls it on with purpose. ‘You’re a man of many faces, Eames. A man of many faces and not much else.’

Eames knows he means business when Arthur reaches for his holdall, and he launches himself from his chair, fierce and unsteady. He catches Arthur off guard, stumbles as he pins him against the wall. ‘Now I know you’re talking bollocks,’ Eames spits. ‘Put that fucking bag down.’

‘No.’

‘Do as you’re told.’ Eames’ voice is low and gravelly, it’s how it gets when he’s desperate, and how Arthur knows _he_ means business. ‘What else can I give you? Reassurance?’

‘There’s no such thing. Not from you.’ Arthur drops his holdall and shifts in Eames’ grip. 

Eames studies Arthur’s scowl. Licks his lips. Releases his grip on Arthur’s arms. ‘‘Insurance, then? Fine.’

Eames dips his fingers into his breast pocket and fishes out a token of affection. Presses it into the meat of Arthur’s palm.

‘Don’t ever question my intentions towards you again,’ Eames says, voice softening when Arthur’s eyes widen in shock at the poker chip resting in his palm. 

Arthur’s eyes glisten, fearful, and he throws the chip down at Eames’ feet. And yeah, that stings, but not as much as it does when Arthur picks his bag up and makes for the door.

‘Might as well take it with you,’ Eames calls, kicking the chip towards Arthur, ‘not much use to me now, is it?’

Later, Eames boards a flight back to Mombasa. He gambles the chip every night, intent on losing it, but it always finds its way back into his pocket.

_**Now:** _

Eames sits across from Arthur in a blank space. It’s safe that way. Arthur rubs his temples. Eames cracks his knuckles and manifests a projector and a screen and says, ‘we’re going to try something new.’

They’ve been at it for days, but every time Eames constructs the moments before, Arthur’s subconscious turns on them both. He’s usually stabbed by an unknown assailant, but he never dies from his wounds - rather he ends up drowning in puddles or a slimy gutter of sewage. It’s always raining. It’s spitting right now, in fact, and Eames hands Arthur an umbrella so he doesn’t catch his death.

‘You’re in the car,’ Eames begins, and the screen fills with the image of Arthur behind the wheel of a red Volvo - 

‘No, it was black. And I was wearing my Clubmasters, not Aviators.’

Eames rolls his eyes and alters the image. 

‘Let’s shift away from details, shall we? You’re in the car, and Cobb says, _you’re not sticking around?_ and you say…’ Eames raises his eyebrows expectantly. Arthur’s silent. ‘Perhaps you say,’ Eames coaxes, and slips into an American accent when his frustration gets the better of him, ‘no, I told Eames that you wanted the PASIV but actually I lied-’

‘Not fair.’

‘I lied,’ Eames continues, ‘and I can’t tell Eames why because…’

Arthur shrugs, tired, says, ‘I don’t remember.’ He shivers. The hair at his nape is damp and curled. ‘I have a clean slate in California, Eames.’

‘Obviously not, Arthur! There’s a tap on the window, and you turn your head. You see the muzzle. He motions for you to put the window down, but you’re defiant, as always: no one holds you up, do they?’ Eames’ scene plays out in freeze frames and close-ups. Arthur is stoic as ever, gripping the stickshift with intent because he always insists on driving the old fashioned way. 

Eames stands, points at the screen - ‘Cobb barely saw him, but you did, Arthur. You knew he was serious because you were considering your options. And that must mean you recognised him.’ 

But the heavens open up, and Arthur’s teeth start to chatter. Eames presses his palm against Arthur’s white-hot forehead. Arthur’s eyes, wide with panic, catch his before they roll back into his head. 

Eames blows his head off and wakes up to Cobb smashing the alarm next to Arthur’s bed with one hand and tearing the IV out of Arthur’s wrist with the other. 

_**Then:** _

On a clear night in April, Arthur looks to the sky. He’s flipping through an ancient book on astronomy that belonged to Eames’ grandfather, occasionally stopping to hold it up against the sky with one eye shut tight, glasses perched on the tip of his nose, trying to make out Virgo in the scattershot of stars above. 

Eames slides next to him, two mugs of tea in hand. 

‘I don’t get it,’ Arthur huffs, pushing his glasses back up, ‘I literally won a commendation for spotting one anomaly in a fifty-thousand-word intelligence report.’

Eames laughs and hands Arthur a mug. ‘Constellations aren’t anomalies, darling. There’s no science behind them; just stories.’ He blows the steam from his scalding drink. ‘Just make up your own.’ 

‘That’s your answer to everything,’ Arthur says simply, and tosses the book away into the darkness, and off Eames’ puzzled look, continues, ‘just make it up.’

‘Improvising is my speciality.’ Eames sips his tea and leans back on his elbows. ‘Keeps you on your toes.’

‘I prefer having both feet on the ground, thanks.’ 

Eames eyes Arthur, doubtful. ‘You’ve put up with it for months, Arthur. If it bothered you that much you would have gone home by now.’

Arthur turns sharply, as if he’s about to bite, but gives his mouth a moment to catch up with his brain. ‘Maybe it’s time to get back out there.’

 _Get back out there_ , Eames thinks. Not _get back home_.

The steam from Arthur’s tea fogs his glasses, and he sniffs and pulls his hat down over his ears and... fuck, Eames is so stupidly, irrevocably, head over heels in love with him that the thought of him finding a home that’s anywhere but right there drops a dead weight behind his sternum that no amount of whisky will shift. 

He tosses his mug to the ground and reaches out to twist Arthur’s sweater in his fist. 

Arthur lets himself be pulled to the ground, lets his lips be kissed and bitten. Eames’ fingers are warm against the freezing skin of his lower back when he finally gives in and lets Eames pull him on top to straddle him. ‘Guess I’ll pack my bags,’ he says against Eames’ lips, ‘hit the road.’

Eames holds Arthur’s hips and pushes up against him. ‘Let’s not be too hasty.’ His fingers slide down the back of Arthur’s jeans. He’s hard; he always gets hard when Eames grabs at him, lifts him and holds him in place, bends him in half like it’s nothing at all. 

‘You don’t have to manipulate me into staying.’ Arthur gasps when Eames digs his fingers into his flesh. ‘If you ask me I’ll say yes.’

But Eames has never been one to cage a bird, so he kisses Arthur slow and deep instead, moves them enough to get their jeans off so they’re bare-arsed in the moonlight and frantic with want. Eames is wet, he knows Arthur can feel it when he slides his cock in the crease of Arthur’s arse and slips against the soft skin as he pushes up against him, just enough to catch his rim. ‘What was the question again?’ he asks.

Arthur laughs against Eames’ lips, and Eames groans, ‘you make me so fucking wet, Arthur. Bet I could slip right inside of you if I wanted to.’

‘I want you to,’ Arthur whispers, and Eames gets his other hand between them to work him over.

Eames works him harder; Arthur braces himself with his forearms and gives up. ‘Maybe I like keeping you guessing,’ Arthur whispers, ‘maybe you like that, too.’

‘Maybe I do,’ Eames responds and he’s breathless with desire. Desire to keep them preserved this moment forever, to keep his secret behind his lips. To come against Arthur’s skin and hold him close and breathe in the cold skin underneath his jaw. He’s never been a sentimental man - he’s dropped lovers and names all around the world - but there’s something maddening about Arthur, seeing as he seems to have made a place for himself in Eames’ life without him even realising it. And now Arthur is a resilient and comfortable constant that Eames can’t bear to let go of no matter how much he knows he should. 

But when Arthur comes hot and urgent against Eames’ stomach he really can’t bring himself to care. He flips Arthur onto his back, right there on the freezing earth, and slips two come-slick fingers into him. Arthur bites his lips, mutters _fuck fuck fuck,_ and pulls Eames ever closer. Eames, with his last thread of self-control, manages to press the head of his cock into Arthur before completely falling apart at the seams. 

He catches his breath, rests his forehead against Arthur’s, ready to apologise, but pants ‘this is fine for now,’ against his lips instead.

_**Now:** _

‘I’ve just realised who you are,’ Cobb says a few days after Eames’ attempt to chip away at Arthur’s subconscious. Arthur is ill, really-might-not-make-it-through-the-night ill. It’s surreal, really, that Arthur should succumb to an infection rather than a bullet.

 _He’d hate that_ , Eames muses, _to go in such an inelegant way._

‘You’re Arthur’s _special project_ ,’ Cobb continues, unsurprisingly, when Eames doesn’t indicate that he’s interested at all. ‘I called him not long after the Fischer job, you know. I felt like I had an encore in me. Took me a while to get hold of him. I assumed he’d gone home but… I guess it makes sense now, with the time difference. 

Anyway, I tried to convince him but he said was working on a special project that had the potential to give him the biggest return of his life. How could I argue with that?’ 

‘He didn’t think you’d want him back, you know, after he fluffed the research.’

Cobb shrugs. ‘It all worked out ok in the end.’

‘That was my fault by the way,’ Eames admits quietly as if Arthur might hear him. ‘We had a lot of catching up to do. I’ll spare you the details.’

‘Thanks.’ Cobb’s quiet for a long moment, eyes soft and impossibly fond. ‘He’s going to be such an asshole when he wakes up, Eames. I don’t envy you at all.’

Eames is suddenly very tired when he says, ‘he’s not waking up from this, Cobb.’ 

‘You should watch your mouth, you know; he can hear you.’ 

‘He can’t hear me, Cobb. He can’t hear me, and he can’t hear you,’ Eames snaps. ‘I know a thing or two about odds, yeah, and the odds say this should _never_ have happened, but it did. And since the odds are in favour of his organs shutting down I’m going to go ahead place my bets on that happening.’ 

‘Better you cash in your chips,’ Cobb replies simply and leaves the room.

_**Then:** _

‘Are you serious?’ Arthur all but screams. He’s delightfully drunk, the kind of drunk that has him barefoot on the grass with his head thrown back in laughter. ‘You really don’t remember the first time we met?’

‘Isn’t that a compliment?’ Eames asks, a little tipsy, a little on edge. 

‘What! How?’ 

‘I’ve known you forever, Arthur; I’ve never considered one moment more important than another.’ 

Except for these ones, of course. The moments where Arthur is unguarded and Eames gets to see him as no one else does. The fucking is one thing - a dozen or more people have seen Arthur’s eyes roll back in his head or watched him come or heard him moan all wet and throaty. 

But have they seen this? How his toes curl in the grass when he almost loses his balance? The line of his throat when he tips his head back and howls with laughter. How his eyes crinkle at the sides and all but disappear when his nose scrunches and his tongue pokes through his teeth?

Eames should tell him, maybe. Write him a letter. Something to keep in his pocket for when this day becomes another in a long list of dates they’ve crossed off a calendar.

‘I was in my bunk,’ Arthur muses, sipping his champagne, ‘and you just swung in all cavalier an’ shit and said-’

Eames folds. ‘Nice plans.’

‘So you DO remember!’ And it’s like an accusation when Arthur says it, of course, because Eames is guilty of everything and Arthur loves catching him out. 

And Eames loves to be caught. Truth be told, Arthur scares the devil right out of him.

‘Fuck you. You’re such an asshole.’ Arthur’s laughing; Eames' throat feels tight. No one ever speaks to him like this - they’re all too afraid of losing him. 

They should be. 

‘I said, _nice plans_ , and watched that little face of yours screw up in confusion. And then I plucked that map out of your fingertips and drew all over it to point out all your weak bits.’ Eames downs the last of his bubbles.

‘You have an obsession with drawing on my stuff which is disturbing, frankly.’ Arthur grabs the champagne from the ice bucket and sloshes more into his glass. He tops Eames up. ‘Here’s to your _darling_ cottage in the country. Built by an Englishman, but improved by an American.’ 

Arthur bows, graceful and unsteady all at once, and turns to face the summer dusk. 

The truth is, sometime ten years ago Eames dropped by the bunk of an unnamed Marine, known only by a set of numbers, because Eames thought he looked exceedingly lovely with one black-eye. 

Arthur didn’t understand why a British Army Captain, who was too young and smart-mouthed for his own good, wanted to scrawl all over his work until the next day when he met him somewhere between sky and earth during a dreamsharing exercise. 

‘Good thing I know all your next moves, isn’t it, darling? Now we can work together and piss them right off,’ Eames had said, winking. ‘They’ll never know what hit them.’

_**Now:** _

Arthur recovers just enough for Eames to have one last go. Arthur looks good: he’s wearing a crisp white shirt and pressed slacks, and his hair is neat and short just as he likes it these days.

‘So, it’s not looking good, is it?’ Arthur’s voice isn’t quite the same anymore, soft now and frail from listening to one-sided conversations. 

Eames says nothing. Sucks his bottom lip and looks away.

‘I’m probably on the wrong side of a twenty-four percent chance of recovering from this.’

‘Percentages are meaningless, really.’ And how can he meet Arthur’s eyes when he’s so obviously lying?

‘Yeah, you really believe that. Please. You’re the best card counter on the planet, E, come on.’ Arthur shakes his head. ‘Everything comes into focus at the end… or at least that’s what I’ve been told. Hey, have you noticed how it’s always raining? Got me thinking, I guess. Like I said, my slate was clean in California.’ 

It finally stops raining. 

‘If I asked you to change on command, could you?’ Arthur asks.

‘I’d give it go,’ Eames responds shakily. 

‘Try this: a woman with dark hair. Black, almost,’ Arthur starts, ‘and the eyes, too. Darker than mine, even. Yeah, like that. Angry looking, just-’ Arthur pulls at Eames’ chin and says, ‘pointier, maybe? No, too much. There. Bloated cheeks, rosy.’

Arthur’s fingers smooth over Eames’ eyebrows and Arthur says, ‘thinner’, cups his palms on his face and says, ‘and scars all over her face. Do you see where I’m going with this?’

He regards Eames like an unfinished painting. Eames turns, imagines a hall of mirrors and lets it fold into existence around them. 

He faces himself, different now. Recognition is instant. ‘No wonder it’s always raining,’ Eames says to his reflection and, off Arthur’s stone-cold certain look, continues, ‘you missed the shot.’

‘Your aim was off.’ Frustration creeps across Arthur’s face. ‘I can’t believe she waited seven years and travelled six and half thousand miles to blow my brains out on the side of the road.’

Eames shakes himself back into his skin. ‘But how did she _know_ , Arthur?’

‘You’d be amazed at what people can find out when they bide their time.’ Arthur takes his hand and laces their fingers together. ‘I should have been more cautious.’ He slips a scrap of paper into Eames’ hand. ‘Head up to Monterey, you’ll see.’

Eames commits the instructions to his memory and puts it in his pocket for safekeeping. 

‘By the way,’ he continues, heartbreakingly wistful, ‘I’m not interested in making a big deal out of this, but... if it looks like I’m not going to come out of this I just want you to come and see me one last time, ok? If I don’t see you… I’ll just wait longer, ok?’

Eames kisses him, and if feels as real as it does topside. 

_**Then:** _

Eames’ cottage has slept underneath the shadow of the Northern Fells for years, waiting to be woken up by someone willing to stitch its bricks and patch its roof. It needs to be loved as much as it needs running water, but Eames has long admired its ability to weather countless storms and not move an inch. It’s a place for tired wanderers and those old before their time, and how fitting it is that he and Arthur are sitting together on the floor in its kitchen with an armful of possibilities between them. 

‘Here’s what I think you should do,’ Arthur starts, rolling out a beautifully designed graphic of the cottage on the kitchen floor. He runs his finger across straight lines and handwritten measurements that have been ruled within an inch of their life. ‘It’s been a while since I designed a building but, to be honest, anything’s better than what you’ve got going on right now.’

Eames gasps in mock horror and says, ‘I’m wounded by that very accurate observation, darling.’

Arthur rolls his eyes. ‘You’re lucky I allowed myself to be tempted into doing this for free, by the way. There’s no way you could afford me otherwise.’

‘Well, then, you’ve served your purpose; off you pop.’ Eames smiles sweetly. ‘I have an eidetic memory, Arthur.’ 

Arthur presses his palm on top of the paper and says, ‘oh yeah? What am I hiding under here?’

Goodness, that’s an invitation if ever Eames has heard one. He doesn’t proffer an answer, just says, ‘we both know you’re going to fiddle with these plans until the day the first bricks are set, and you’re obviously going to stay to make sure everyone stays in line. Or,’ he lifts Arthur’s palm to try and peek underneath, ‘do you have somewhere else to be, after all?’

Arthur pulls his hand from Eames’ grip and lets the plan roll up and curl. The corner catches his index finger in protest and slices a hairline cut right through his flesh. 

Maybe it’s a lapse of sanity caused by Arthur’s shocked little gasp, Eames doesn’t know, but he grabs Arthur’s hand and sucks his finger into his mouth. He expects Arthur to snatch his hand back, punch him in the mouth and say _what the fuck_ but, instead he stares, dumbfounded.

He pulls Arthur’s finger from his mouth with a _pop_ and blows on the wet skin. ‘I’ll give you a key’

Arthur grabs his scroll and stands on shaky legs. He looks down on Eames who’s gazing up at him like he’s hung the moon (and most of the stars). ‘I’ll get some quotes,’ he says, and taps Eames on the head with the end of the roll.

_**Now:** _

It takes Eames six contacts and a few hundred miles of California coastline to track Valeria Dobre down. The years have not been kind to her: she looks as tired and haggard as Eames feels.

Grief does that, he supposes.

She doesn’t beg for mercy when Eames grabs her by her long dark hair and throws her in the back of his car. It’s almost depressingly easy. Arthur would have found a way to drag this out, make her reconsider even in her last moments of complete resignation.

In a basement of an abandoned restaurant, Eames blindfolds her and hooks her into the PASIV with the same light fingers that lifted an IV bag and two vials of pentobarbital from the hospital. She doesn’t struggle against her bonds, nor beg for mercy when Eames fits her with fluids to keep her body going as long as possible. 

There’s no maximum dreamtime on Arthur’s PASIV: he rewired it long ago when he and Mal discovered some dreams were just too good to let go of. Valeria will never wake up but, with any luck, she’ll never crawl her way back from the nightmare she’s been left in, either. He depresses the syringe of sedative into her neck and says, ‘you couldn’t have just bloody left it, could you?’

And it’s there that he leaves her, alone and unaware behind a locked door, with a, ‘best of luck, Valeria.’

*

There’s a SOLD sign swaying in the breeze outside of Arthur’s house. Inside it’s quaint and full of inherited furniture that he’s never had the time nor inclination to replace. The bureau in the bedroom is one of those items. It’s strikingly old-fashioned, probably older than the house itself, and it twists Eames’ heart to think of him continuing to care for it during the rare moments he spent here. 

Eames picks the lock on the top draw. Nestled amongst passport photos and shell casings, Eames finds a tatty hand-drawn map full of red scribbles, a birth certificate for a baby boy born in Portland in 1981, and a pair of mismatched dog tags exchanged hastily during the dead of night in 2002. 

The start and end of it all resting in a drawer in a house in Monterey. 

_**Then:** _

The Hilton in Heathrow, 2007, after a job very well done. Eames on his back, Arthur riding him with one hand gripping the headboard and the other tight in Eames’ hair. His flight is in six hours and if he wants to take out his pre-airport jitters on Eames’ body, well, who is he to say no?

‘Don’t come, don’t fucking come,’ Arthur grits out, ‘not yet.’

Eames grabs Arthur’s hips, breathing heavy, and digs his fingers until Arthur’s flushed skin pales underneath. Arthur slows the roll of his hips. Releases his white-knuckled grip on the headboard and leans down for a kiss. 

Arthur’s jaw and cheek are bruised and tender, but that doesn’t stop Eames from biting along the edges of purple - he’ll leave no marks, just phantom pain for Arthur to carry around with him wherever he goes next. 

He pushes at Arthur’s ribs, says ‘roll over.’ He feels Arthur’s smile against his lips, and urges him with a, ‘come on, pet’ Eames snakes his hand around to hold the base of the condom, impossibly slick and prickly-hot, and gets Arthur on his back. 

Arthur spreads his legs, drapes them over Eames’ shoulders without a moment’s hesitation. The air between them ripe with lube and sweat when Eames pushes back inside of Arthur’s willing body without guidance or resistance. Both of them staring at the space where Eames disappears inside of him, the flex of his pelvis unhurried and almost unbearably intimate to watch. 

Arthur smiling until he can’t anymore. 

‘How do I feel?’ Arthur asks, reaching down to run his index finger around his stretched hole. ‘You love to watch me, don’t you?’

Eames answers with a quick thrust and a breathless laugh. Slaps his palm next to Arthur’s head and hammers into him. 

And then Eames is moving Arthur again, rolling him down onto his belly and blanketing his body with his own. Mouthing at Arthur’s neck and shoulder blades hungrily, nipping the skin of his shoulders with crooked teeth. Arthur twists and twitches to chase the sensation, but Eames is lightning quick, moving to bite him, hard, on the back of the neck. 

Sucks Arthur’s skin between his teeth and bites again. Arthur gasps and groans until all that’s left in him to do is to cry out _enough enough fuck me please just please_ and scream with delight when Eames grabs him by the throat and god, he’s never begged to be fucked in his life but 

he’s 

done 

in.

He’s completely gone. 

*

‘So…’ Eames says, scratching at his chest sometime later that night, ‘are we going to go on pretending I still owe you, or - ’ 

‘Absolutely,’ Arthur cuts in. He rolls on his side and fingers the scar under Eames’ chin. ‘You’re lucky I always aim, and stitch, to please.’

Eames hums in approval. ‘How do you feel about pro-bono work?’ 

‘Depends who it’s for.’

‘Me.’ 

Arthur snorts and pushes at Eames’ chest.

‘You’ve cleaned me out, Arthur. I’ve nothing left to offer you apart from good intentions.’

‘You are so full of shit, Eames,’ Arthur blurts, laughing. 

Arthur’s fast, but Eames is cunning, and he pins Arthur to the mattress quickly and efficiently. Maybe it’s because Arthur allows himself to go down without a fight, but maybe not. Eames leans down to lick his ear. ‘Fancy staying in England? I need an architect who can run point.’

Arthur’s body relaxes under Eames’ weight. ‘How have we gone from you owing me to doing two jobs for the price of none? Why would I do that, Eames?’

Eames runs his fingers through Arthur’s hair, all wild and sweaty against the sheets, and says, ‘because I’m asking you to.’

_**Now:** _

Eames dreams, and watches Arthur sleep.

He thinks of Valeria, likely bloated and foul by now, and prays he won’t need to retrieve the PASIV from her tomb. Arthur wanted it gone, and now it’s gone for good.

Feels the weight of the dog tags resting in his pocket, and what it means for Arthur’s only safe home to now belong to someone else.

Finally works up the courage to look at Arthur from sorry head to toe. To lean down and whisper, ‘it’s time to come home, darling,’ in his ear, and then answer Arthur’s phantom _why_ with, ‘because I’m asking you to, alright?’

_**Then:** _

Bucharest, 2006. 

An industrial park during a rainstorm. 

A thief with two clumsy stab wounds and his sometimes-lover, sometimes-colleague mad with desire to kill crouched behind a plinth of rapidly disintegrating brickwork.

Arthur and adrenaline are a match made in heaven, he’s a dancer and assassin all at once when he returns precise shots into a hail of bullets. He only stops once to reload and twice to reassure himself that Eames hasn’t bled to death.

In the distance, a pair of all-the-time lovers, sometimes-gangsters, fire at will until Arthur’s shots result in a deafening _pop_ and the sharp sound of glass shattering. A woman screams, and Arthur fires again and again until the body he can see gives up and stops crawling. 

‘Fuck, I missed Valeria! Wait here-’

‘Leave it,’ Eames urges, tugging weakly at Arthur’s coat sleeve. ‘I’m going to pass out.’

‘You’re not going to pass out.’ Arthur’s voice is firm and demanding. He hoists Eames up with him. ‘Not until you’ve hotwired a car; you know how to do that right?’

Eames does, and he manages to spark an old Skoda to life with his rain-numb and bloody hands. He groans when Arthur throws him across the backseat and kicks the door shut, and promptly loses consciousness when Arthur puts his foot to the floor.

The first thing Eames says when he wakes up is, ‘do you really not know how to hotwire a car?’

‘Obviously,’ Arthur replies, ‘but you weren’t going to pass out if you thought I couldn’t.’

‘Sneaky sod.’

‘Who stabs someone in the face over a counterfeit bill, anyway?’ Arthur snaps and rips the latex gloves off his hands. ‘I missed the shot, Eames.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It always matters.’

‘Let’s worry about it another day,’ Eames says weakly. He reaches up to feel his chin and Arthur slaps his hand away. ‘How many stitches did it need?’

Arthur taps the side of his nose, says, ‘don’t worry about it.’

‘Promise me won’t be horribly ugly?’

Arthur just smiles and shakes his head. Presses a featherlight kiss to Eames’ forehead and says, ‘I’ve stitched prettier faces than yours.’

_**Now:** _

One day, sometime after a house sale goes through in Monterey and a boy from Portland really has nowhere else to go, the hand that Eames is squeezing squeezes back. 

_**Then:** _

One day, after time has ceased to be anything other than dates crossed off a calendar, Eames catches a voice from another life echoing through a safe house in Curacao. 

His eyes flicker up from the plans laid out in front of him to a Marine in a suit and tie. 

‘Nice plans,’ he says, face lit up with amazement. ‘I’m Arthur.’

‘Eames,’ he says, extending his hand. ‘Guess we’ll be working together?’

Arthur dips his head, smiles almost secretively, and says, ‘I guess so. They’ll never know what hit them.’


End file.
